Austin’s Front

Austin’s Front

On my last trip to Texas, we made some serious progress on Austin’s tattoo @rockofagestattoo – what began as a half sleeve around an existing moth has become a body suit, it’s a slippery slope.

Thank you Austin for the perseverance and courage to keep going through this one, the torso is no joke…….. easy bits next?

Jaya Healed

This past summer whilst guesting at This Time Tomorrow in Brooklyn, I had the absolute honor of tattooing Jaya @jayaism via ig and website link here www.Jayaism.com Jaya is a Tattooer whom I am hugely inspired by.

He very kindly sent over some healed photographs, this is about 4 months healed and settled.

This piece is inspired by bamboo ornament motifs from Borneo and Timor, which was to connect with Jaya’s Indonesian heritage.

Thank you Jaya.

4 x 5 Film shots of Ryan’s Back

My posts on this blog are sporadic to say the least…..

In an attempt to share some photographs of my work and keep posting…….

Here is Ryan’s back photographed on Ilford 4×5 hp5 film, using my Graflex Speed Graphic with a Schneider Xenar 210mm f3 Lens, taken last month whilst in Texas.

Thank you for looking, and thank you Ryan for getting this work done and sitting through all of it.

108 sleeves

How is everyone doing out there?

I hope anyone reading this is doing ok and finding time to be healthy and safe during this crazy period.

This weekend I took up a fun little social media challenge from my friend @tomastomas108 – the  #108sleevesinternetchallenge
I decided to post them on here also as it is quite a broad spectrum of my work, from my first ever sleeve on @jorgeteran into a selection of sleeves in somewhat chronological order, ending with one I finished a few weeks before the lockdown started. This represents approximately 17 years of tattooing.
I strongly recommend checking out @tomastomas108 work if you haven’t seen it before, totally mind blowing and his contribution to the art of tattoo is phenomenal. Thank you, to all the amazing clients through the years, can’t wait to get back to work. I’d also like to say sorry to those I didn’t include in this with sleeves from me, I don’t have all my photos anymore.

Stay safe and healthy out there.

Thank you for looking – Thomas.

Neurosis Album Fine Art Prints – Fires Within Fires.

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Fires Within Fires is the eleventh studio album by Neurosis, a band I have been following since I was a teenager, that’s 25 years!!!! The album was released on September 23, 2016, via the band’s own record label, Neurot Recordings. I am very grateful to have teamed up with their record label Neurot and my good friends at Deathwish to make available for the first time, museum quality prints of the art I created for this album.

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Making art for them has been a dream of mine and always seemed like it would be out of my league. So when I started making t-shirt art for the band and working with them on solo album projects I was honored and humbled to say the least.
When the opportunity arose to make an album cover for them,  I jumped at the chance and poured every bit of creative energy into the project, creating not just a cover but a full album package and layout for the gatefold LP, even down to hand painting the bands logo, album titles and writing the lyrics page with recording info.

1st Piece PATHWAY

The first sketch that I created for the album that struck a chord with the band and led to ideas for the finished cover and layout.

I wanted this piece of work to be a landmark achievement for my creative outlet that I like to call painting but at times feel is just illustration. It was a hard project to get a visual grasp of as I didn’t want to embed my artistic personality into their music and also wanted to represent their monumental legacy and iconic visual identity without repeating previous art they have used.

Sun Rough

The Sumi ink sketch that became the main element of the final painted back cover.

Carrying themes from their lyrics and weighted music, this was the final outcome……

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Like Neurosis’ previous albums, Fires Within Fires combines “elements from the post-metal genre they co-created with elements of industrial, doom, punk and folk”.

You can listen to the album hear and discover more about the band here.

Neurosis

Neurot

Itunes

Spotify

The prints are available here via Deathwish.com

There are two sizes available
Medium: 12.5″ W X 24″ H
Large: 18.5″ W X 36″ H
Printed on: Fine Line, Coarse Watercolor, 315 GSM
Museum Quality Giclée Prints.
Poster tube included with each order. Ships within 7-10 business days.

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https://deathwishinc.com/collections/thomas-hooper/products/thomas-hooper-fires-within-fires-giclee-print

Thank you the all the members of the band for trusting me with this project and to Jacob Bannon for all his help making the art available as prints.